Serano Bakery

Bakery: Serano Bakery
Address: 830 Pape Ave, Toronto ON 
Website: http://www.seranobakery.com/
Style: Greek, Mediterranean, European
Price:

On a spur of the moment decision, I decided to make a loooong overdue trip to Greektown. I came for the Danish bakery (which still amazes) and ended up going away with two new Cake Tours. :P I could have sworn that this place looked a lot different from the last time I saw it. I remember this fairly dark bakery divided into several cramped rooms and thinking it was Italian, or am I just really confused? Several years ago (the first time on Pape, in fact) I don't think I ended up buying anything; seeing as I walked in this time into a veritable gallery of cakes and pastries (the Olympus of Greek baking, if you will :P), something must have changed.

Whether I'm thinking of some other bakery or not, Serano, as it is, is amazing. There are few bakeries I've gone to where I have a hard time deciding what to take, simply because there's so much selection and, not only that, everything looks so darn good! And this is certainly the case with Serano, where there's beyond dozens of delectable treats in a long row of glass cases. One (or was it two) was devoted exclusively to cookies. Another set are for elaborate cake slices. Around the corner are the dozen or so varieties of baklava and phyllo-based pastries, and next to that there's even their own gelato (complete with a few Greek flavours that *must* be tried; the miserable weather was the only thing preventing me from getting it this time) Along the opposite wall, there are even more glass cases, these housing exclusively Greek pastries: from larger sized custard pies (not bougatsa, the other one -- the former is found in a box next to the cash with the yeast-based baked goods) and semolina-based cakes, among other things.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the selection is jaw-dropping. If you love Greek baking, there are traditional cakes, cookies, and honeyed pastries that you won't see anywhere else in the city. Even if you're not too fond of the authentic goods, come for the lovely and affordable assortment of cake slices. There's something for everyone (unless you don't like sweets, but then again, what are you doing here? :D)! Not to mention the fact that everything is labelled and priced. With the exception of the items sold by weight (baklava and cookies are at around $17/kg), all single items are very well-priced at $2.00 or less -- yes, even the cakes! Seriously, these guys make it pretty difficult for you to go away with the half the store in their pretty bags. ;)

After a lot of deliberating, I picked out three items, all with Greek names and all which I've never heard of before (and there were plenty more to choose from). The first was a slice of karidopita ($1.75), which was a large piece of spice cake loaded with (as the brother put it) "these awesome nuts" and then "bathed" (as the mom put it) in honey, but without it becoming soggy. Mmm... a definite highlight.

Another highlight: diples ($2.00). These are apparently served at weddings or special occasions, and while I don't have any occasions to celebrate (besides finding a new Cake Tour :D), these were still tasty. Quite simple in concept: a fried piece of flat dough rolled into a sort of log, coated in honey, and then dusted with cinnamon, but so good, wedding or no wedding! *-*

The third item was a cup of kourkoubinia ($2.00 per cup or sold by weight), these phyllo niblets or, perhaps, think of them as a sort of "baklava ends": phyllo dough tightly rolled into logs about double the thickness of a pencil, cut into bite-sized pieces, topped with nuts, and then soaked in a lovely pool of honey. One brother complained that those not in the honey were a little dry, but other than that, people were impressed with this unique treat.

Overall, Serano is definitely worth a visit. It might be difficult to decide on what you want, but hey! there's always next time. And a next time there certainly will be. :P

Rating: ***1/2

BF Bakers [RIP]

Bakery: BF Bakers (Bagel Flame) 
Address: 126 Wellington St W #108, Aurora ON 
Website: n/a
Style: Colombian, Jewish 
Price:

Well, so I did get a bakery in Aurora, after all! :) BF Bakers did come across as a purely bagels place, so I was a little wary of sending the brother in anyways and scouting the territory on my behalf, but he did bring back something. While bagels do seem to be their specialty, this place also has a unique, perhaps surprising variety of Jewish baked goods (challah bread, chocolate croissants), North American favourites like cookies, and -- note that this apparently on weekends only -- also a smattering of sweet and savoury Colombian baking as well. So the brother didn't get any of that (don't ask why; I myself fail to understand his choices sometimes); supposedly, he actually asked whether they had anything with poppy seed (bonus points for that) but they were sold out or hadn't baked any that day. Not sure if I believe there's anything ever there, but at the very least it was no poppy seed this time around. *pouts*

Nevertheless, the brother picked out for me a piece of apple cake, a pie-like cake reminding me a lot of Portuguese-style apple pie (both of the actual pie and cake square variety I've tried in a couple of bakeries) Sadly, I wasn't a big fan of the filling; I'm not sure why, but so many places seem to use, if not the same filling, the same apples (very few are an exception to this rule and, as such, I've grown to avoid apple pies unless I already know they're good). What I meant to say: I was a little disappointed to find the same hard-apple filling here, which was not so great, although I liked the cinnamon on the bottom, as well as the criss-cross dough on top with rock sugar and a sort of apricot (or peach, maybe) jam/glaze on top.

Personally, I would have liked to try something else, but this first sample hasn't turned me off from a second trial. A fairly good, but not amazing bakery.

Rating: **1/2

Alice Bakery

Bakery: Alice Bakery
Address: 13321 Yonge St, Richmond Hill ON
Website: http://www.alicebakery.ca/
Style: Russian
Price: $$

[Well, I return. I hit a sort of dry spell and was feeling a little down/not in the mood for cake-touring, but I am indeed back with a few additions to my little site. :) I was actually thinking the other day of a Great Canadian Cake Tour and how amazing that would be (I can already envision the cheesy logo for that! *-*); perhaps it would be chance to make this a little more.. pro. Better photos, better stories -- not sure. This was inspired by the fact that I'll be in the Maritimes in a little more than a month and the possibilities are exciting me, though I'm slowly beginning to realize that you don't realize travelling within Canada isn't cheap until you're actually planning it. :/ A couple of sponsors, maybe a column in a food and living mag -- now, that would solve the problem! :DDDD *wakes up from her daydreaming*]

Ahem, the first of these additions is Alice Bakery, in North Richmond Hill (another trip the brother took; in fact, he went to Aurora, but as the bakery scene isn't exactly sprawling, he made the small detour to this place), a Russian bakery that seems to pride itself especially on its multi-layered cakes and cake slices, veritable pillars of nutty and chocolatey sponge cake and cream. In addition to this, they also have more French offerings, such as fruit tarts, as well as some traditional baked goods like... the good old-fashioned poppy seed strudel. ;) Ahh, imagine my delight when he came back with this nondescript log in a plastic bag labelled 'poppy seed'!

The strudel was particularly delicious: very heavy and generously filled with a rich poppy seed mass. The dough was denser and complimented the poppy seeds perfectly. It reminded me most of Hungarian-style poppy seed strudels, especially with the humble exterior (hiding all the good stuff inside ^.^). Mmmm....

This was certainly the highlight, although the cakes came out a fairly big hit as well, in particular the Queen Bee cake square (the darker one) with honey cake, chocolate on top, and a white cream in between the layers of cake. This is recommended. The caramel cake, although good, was simply too rich and one-dimensional -- it was after all caramel cake and caramel cream -- for one to just keep eating it. The first bite was tasty, but as you continued, it got to be too much.

The only real disappointments -- not really, but in comparison to everything else -- were the two French-styled tarts: the clafoutis with raspberries and blueberries and the apple tart. For the first one, I guess one disadvantage was that I had gone to Clafouti two weeks prior (and they know clafoutis ;)); Alice's clafoutis are good in taste, but just way too doughy. The tart shell was not only quite thick, and almost double the thickness of the walls on the bottom, but the glaze on top was also thick and overpowering. You taste the dough and glaze, but nothing of the filling.


I encountered a similar problem with the apple tart, which did look lovely with its flower of apple pieces. The thing is, it's visually appealing, but impossible to crack open with a dessert fork. The shell was too thick and grabbing one apple just brought them all down, so it ended up being better to just divide everything up on the plate. It was yummy: the shortbread shell was good and there was a vanilla filling and well, one must remember I'm a sucker for apple cake with vanilla sauce. ;) It was frustrating that you had to massacre it before sticking it in your mouth. The apple certainly beat the clafoutis.

While Alice Bakery has a variety of pan-European goodies, I'd definitely say stick to the more "Russian" options: delicious strudels and decadent tiered cakes, especially if you'd like to sample the best this bakery has to offer.

Rating: ***